Notrerim

Abdel Aziz Should Step Down Now

His government nothing more than a pack of lies and his regime a dictatorship bent on oppressing the people of Mauritania

Marrero, LA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/10/2012 -- His government nothing more than a pack of lies and his regime a dictatorship bent on oppressing the people of Mauritania, it is past time that Ould Abdel Aziz stepped down.

His illegal seizure of power in 2008 remains to be addressed honestly. Despite numerous calls from the international community for an honest reckoning, Aziz has rebuffed any attempt to show his illegitimate his government is. His promises of elections “as soon as possible” is a complete joke and is reducing Mauritania to a laughing stock across the globe. The 2009 election in which he won 52.58 percent of the votes is widely considered a fraud.

The US State Department has regularly issued statements condemning the coup d’état as illegal and unconstitutional. The African Union has issued condemnation of General Aziz. He is the subject of travel bans and the asset freezing.

Aziz is directly responsible for lack of reliable election mechanisms, unresolved humanitarian issues, unemployment, slavery, violation of human rights, insecurity and terrorism, even while he publicly decries these very things. In 2007, slavery was declared illegal but since then only one person has been brought to justice. Rather, attempts to end slavery are prosecuted. “Seven anti-slavery activists were arrested in April after burning religious books advocating slavery. When they were tried for threatening state security in June, the court dismissed the case for “incompetence and procedural nullity,” according to the Movement for Justice and Equality in Mauritania. Despite the ruling, the seven remain behind bars,” states The Daily News from Egypt.

If he was so against these crimes, why do they continue to run rampant and unabated in Mauritania? Why does law enforcement kowtow to him and persecute those opposed to his regime why his supporters are free to do as they please? Where is the justice this man has promised? The answer to that is, the promised justice has been perverted, subverted and rejected by this man who is more interested in dominating the people of Mauritania than serving them.

The Daily News from Egypt reports “The West African country suffers from corruption, drought and an unemployment rate of 30 percent, the third highest in the Arab World after Yemen and Djibouti. Slavery is endemic, with CNN estimating that 10 to 20 percent of the country’s population of 3.5 million live in some form of slavery. In addition, the ethnically African population is increasingly disenfranchised by the ruling Arabic class.”